Lightning In A Bottle
by mcfly85
Summary: NEW VERSION: So, just when my teenage delusions were comfortably forgotten, they showed up to slap me in the face. Now the usual stresses of life don't exactly compete with having to deal with a Goblin King with a questionable agenda. JS
1. Just Another Example, etc

_Just one disclaimer, and it's the standard one – anything in this story that seems like it might be from the movie _**Labyrinth**_ is, and therefore I don't own it. Everything else, on the other hand, is mine. This is meant as a tribute and comes from my great admiration and respect for Jim Henson and all of the talent behind this amazing film. This story is rated 'M' for language and adult situations in later chapters. _

_So, there are a few things any potential reader of this story should know. Firstly, if you're here and reading this, I seriously thank you. I've done a kind of weird thing here – this story was actually born last year, and I had several chapters posted when I got to the point where I could no longer deal with the fact that I knew there was a much better way to write it, and that wasn't the way I was doing it. Rather than continue with the other format I had going, I decided to pull it for a total re-write. So if you remember the old version, or you start to read this and it seems familiar, that's what happened. This version feels much better to me, and it's just something I had to do. If you read any of it before, as I said, **thank you**. And if you reviewed, thank you very much for that, also. I'm totally in love with this fandom, and I am absolutely committed to seeing this story to its completion through regular updates. **Much** **thanks **to my talented betas (who are the best in this or any universe) and other _**Labyrinth**_ writers who have inspired me. : ) _

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**CHAPTER ONE: Just Another Example Of How I Can _Never_ Seem To Come Home And Have A Normal Weekend**

"Damn!" Even though no one was around on whom I could vent my frustration, there was something satisfying about verbalizing it anyway. There was that familiar little stab of pain, blended together with the sort of irritation one usually feels when stuck in traffic behind a school bus, a garbage truck, and someone who clearly thinks it's Sunday (rather than rush hour on a Monday morning). Hmm…did that make two? No, it was actually my _third _broken nail that day, if you counted the one I snagged opening mail the night before, which was after midnight. I counted it. Why on earth had I let Carla drag me to the salon last weekend? There was seriously no point in having new, fancy nails if I was going to be this bad at maintaining them.

The front door was giving me a horrible time again. The funny thing was it wasn't just _one_ singular problem. Sometimes it was the deadbolt, which seemed to fall mysteriously into place when no one was home, making coming back in again a real bitch. Sometimes it was the knob, which on its best day was pretty sticky, although one time it had actually fallen right off in my hand. Other times the door itself was so stiff it took my whole body weight to heft it open; it didn't matter if I was coming or going. Tonight it was the deadbolt. Seriously, how can a deadbolt be locked if it's only the flip-switch kind, and no one's home? Only in my crazy apartment, I swear. Sometimes it felt like there was some force that just didn't _want_ me in there or something.

When we had first moved in it sort of freaked me out. I'd seen a scary movie once where a woman comes home late one night and unlocks her door, only to find the chain lock in place (and she lives alone). Okay, just that idea alone is enough to give me nightmares for a week. Then, she pulls out her cell and dials her own number (a pretty stupid thing to do under the circumstances, I thought). And this guy answers, like it's no big deal – he just says 'hello'. Then the door flies open and said man (now obviously the serial killer they'd been looking for the whole film) grabs her and pulls her inside, with a nice shot of blood spatter on the opposite wall, all over the door of her neighbor's apartment. Charming, I know. That scene, coupled with my possessed front door, used to scare the crap out of me. But I was totally used to it now. I'd accepted the fact that it seemed to have a mind of its own. And I was never scared in my own apartment. Once I crossed the threshold, I knew I was in my own complete haven, and _I_ made the rules.

Having finally used a little brute force from my shoulder, I managed to get the damn thing open, making a mental note to call the office in the morning. Well, noon anyway, since tomorrow was Saturday and they opened late. Reflexively, I reached out in the dark and palmed Ambrosius' head. He was trying to nose his way outside, as usual, before there was even an opening big enough for him. This would have been a lot easier if it wasn't so completely dark. Ugh. It was just like Neil to forget to leave a light on when he left. I managed to find the switch and flick on the hall light. The dog started jumping up and frantically trying to lick my face. Judging from his level of enthusiasm, I figured I had probably thirty seconds, tops, before he peed on the floor.

"Alright, alright," I told him, laughing a little in spite of the crappy day I'd had. Just a quick change from heels to sneakers, which I always kept in the entryway for this situation, and I threw the door open, letting him run down the stairs ahead of me. I wasn't worried about not having him on a leash at this time of night. Being that Neil and I were practically the only tenants without little kids, and it was currently almost midnight, there wasn't much chance of our meeting a neighbor.

I followed him out to the lawn, inhaling deeply and generally enjoying the fresh night air now that I'd divested myself of the huge-as-usual pile of crap I'd been carrying. Tonight that pile had included ten costume-design portfolios I was supposed to review over the weekend. If I didn't know there was no way I could possibly have carried more than a hundred pounds' worth of stuff up the stairs, I would've said they weighed in at ten pounds each.

The outdoor floodlights illuminated the fluffy whiteness of dog fur as Ambrosius sniffed idly from tree to tree, trying to pick a good spot. I sat on the stairs, and dropped my chin into my hand as I watched him, finally beginning to relax after a day of non-stop tension. The air was slightly crisp and a little damp, full and lush with the earthy smells of spring. The scents of the flora around me seemed to have a little more intoxicating edge after dark. I wasn't sorry that I dodged Carla and Dave at the end of the night and opted to go home instead of out for drinks with them. After this week I was dangerously low on sleep, and I looked forward to drifting off with the window open. Tonight was the sort of night made for dreaming.

A few more deep breaths, and I tipped my head back to check out the sky. The moon was supposed to be nearly full, although I hadn't noticed it on the drive home. Also, I'm pretty good at recognizing some of the constellations. The famous ones anyway – Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Orion – the stuff they teach liberal arts students in a class (very generously) titled "Physical Science." But nope. Tonight was too cloudy. I hadn't noticed that it was supposed to rain, and I'm a chronic weather report-checker. When you're getting ready to open a show, and the scene and costume shops are in a separate building from the auditorium (necessitating the running of a twenty-yard gauntlet between the two buildings during load-in), you get to really start praying for sunny skies so nothing gets wet. The most realistic-looking Grecian column will _still_ liquefy in water if it's made of styrofoam, which trust me, it always is.

The barking got my attention. Ambrosius had become a distinctly smaller white smudge, having now wandered down to the river. Probably he'd seen a deer, maybe a fox…please God, not a skunk. I jogged down to him, hoping that at least he wasn't rolling in the mud. It was a little cooler down here, and I was starting to regret leaving my suit jacket back in the apartment. The blouse I was wearing did nothing to keep me warm. Ambrosius trotted up to me, seeming fine and thankfully still smelling like dog.

Taking care to keep my tweed pants out of the mud, I bent down to make sure he was okay – checking his face in case he'd gotten in a fight or something like that – as I scratched his ears. He seemed fine and he nosed at me a little himself before he started to lick my face shamelessly. Without warning, the landscape around us was illuminated as a bolt of lightning sliced across the sky. Two seconds later a sonic boom-style thunderclap seemed to shake the earth. Apparently we were suddenly in the middle of a gothic horror cliché.

"C'mon, Merlin. Time to go inside." I stood up, then hearing the echo of my words, felt like I'd just been punched in the stomach. We'd had Ambrosius for nearly a year and I was still slipping from time to time. I'd been hesitant to get an Old English Sheepdog to begin with, thinking it would just be too gross since Merlin (the first sheepdog in my life and also my first love) had died several years ago. But after going back and forth about it, Neil showed up one day with the sweetest puppy I'd ever seen and since then he'd been the third member of our family. I loved him enormously, but sometimes he was just _so much_ like Merlin, it was a struggle to remember that they weren't the same dog.

Almost impossibly fast, the rain started and we were soaked through in seconds. So much for the silk blouse and this half of my new tweed suit. The previous weekend's trip to the mall with Carla had also included the purchase of this outfit, meant to impress the Board of Governors, with whom I'd met earlier that day. Oh well. I'd reminded her at the time that I wasn't the suit-wearing type. That in all likelihood I'd ruin the thing the first time I wore it (I don't tend to have the best of luck with clothes that are labeled "dry clean only"). And now look, five days later, soaking wet and running through the mud.

Our building sits on a hill, and the trip back up to the doors was a hell of a lot harder (again, the mud was partially to blame) than the trip down. Ambrosius ran a little ahead of me, obviously excited by this impromptu race. Looking at him as I struggled uphill reminded me of something. What was it? I felt a little like there was a magnet in my brain, pulling me toward…something I was supposed to remember.

Once we made contact with pavement I grabbed the dog collar and muscled him up to our apartment door. This time, thankfully, the door unlocked right away, behaving itself as if it hadn't been a total bitch a few minutes ago. I swung it open. Complete and total darkness. What the hell? I knew I'd left that light on. Maybe it had been on its way to burning out after all, and I shouldn't give Neil such a hard time about it. Yet, when I reached out and flicked the switch again, _it was down_. As in, turned off. The light flared bright easily enough when I turned it on this time, but I was beyond freaked. Either I was just deliriously tired and _thought_ I'd left it on when we went outside, or someone was here.

"Hello?" I called softly, heart in my throat. Huh – maybe I was just as dumb as that woman from the movie after all. Yeah, if there was some psycho in my apartment, announcing my solitary, scared female presence was a great idea! Hell, I might as well call out, 'hey, my jewelry box is in the bottom drawer of the vanity, I'm all alone, weak and unarmed, and the only thing protecting me is the world's most cowardly dog'. What in the hell was I thinking? If I _really_ thought there was a chance of an intruder, I should have turned right back around and left, right? But no, that was a little more sensibility than I was capable of at the moment. Hoping that I wasn't vastly over-estimating Ambrosius' ability to intimidate (hey – the dog had been around enough actors in his life that hopefully he'd picked up a thing or two), I kept hold of his collar and made him walk with me from room to room, as I switched on every light in the place. By the time we'd checked the kitchen, bathroom (making a particular point of looking behind the shower curtain) and spare bedroom, I was feeling foolish. You'd think that being married to a performer who, obviously, worked nights, I'd be used to being alone at odd hours by now. No wonder Neil had been so insistent about getting the dog. I had probably been showing signs of cracking up from the solitude back then.

Breathing much easier, we went into my room and took a look around. Unfortunately, the ceiling fixture in here _was_ burned out – I'd been meaning to fix it since a couple of nights ago – but the light spilling from the closet, and an extra-bright nightlight that always stayed on, were more than sufficient as the dog and I checked in dark corners and under the bed. I let out a huge sigh, feeling _very_ stupid and now completely convinced that I just needed a good long sleep. Ambrosius flopped down on the bed, but a quick snap of my fingers and he jumped right down. I love animals, but the wet dog and mud combination on my duvet is where I draw the line. He trotted over to the corner, and I stepped into the walk-in closet. I pulled out some pajamas to change into, and turned my attention to my ruined blouse. I'm no expert, but I figured it was a goner for sure so I wasn't even careful as I unbuttoned it. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something weird. A gentle flickering. Turning my head, I found the source. A candle was burning on the dresser next to the television. What the hell? How had I not seen it before? Although at my current level of exhaustion it wasn't impossible for me to have missed it – plus I'd been at least partially convinced that I was about to be attacked by a maniac. Oh, Neil was going to get it from me when he got home! If it was still burning, that meant that we could have burned this building to the ground anytime in the last six hours! That was _really _careless, even for him. I blew it out and stepped back into the pool of light coming from the closet, where I pulled my shirt the rest of the way off.

Then I heard it. It was…horrible. The sort of sound I'd been freaking myself out imagining, whenever I came home to our empty apartment. It was the sound of a throat clearing, distinctly male. From behind me. In my bedroom.

Without turning around, I started to pull the blouse back on, consciously trying not to shake (even though I was freezing, and wet, and more vulnerable-feeling than I could ever remember being in my whole life) as I attempted to force my arms back through the sodden sleeves. Almost immediately I realized this was a stupid choice. My robe was hanging right next to me, for goodness' sake! But, having committed to the action, I continued to struggle for some moments with the blouse, as though this was something I did every time I experienced a home invasion. There was just something about not being fully dressed with this stranger in my house that made my skin crawl – aside from the obvious reasons – and while it might have been smarter for me to get out of there as fast as possible, I couldn't stand the thought that he'd breached not only the privacy of my home, but my own senses of personal privacy and decency as well. It was like if I could get my same blouse back on, I could somehow undo what he'd already seen; what I'd already felt. Just a nice, simple rewind. So while my body was busy with that undertaking, my eyes started looking for something I could maybe use as a weapon. They landed on a large flashlight that I kept on the closet shelf. I use it just about every day to find my shoes, since they're in a gargantuan pile on the closet floor and the light of the ceiling fixture is sometimes very unhelpful in finding the partner of whichever shoe I'm already holding in my hand. Karen keeps trying to convince me to get some sort of multi-tiered organizer, but I figure, why pay a thousand dollars for some hoity toity closet system so I can find my stuff when a ten-dollar flashlight does the job just as well? And now look, I've found another great use for it: in-a-pinch weapon against a burglar.

I knew he was watching me. I was standing at the closet threshold, light right over my head, and he was, at most, twenty feet away in the (relatively) darkened bedroom. He must have been able to hear my heart pounding by now. My thoughts had abandoned language, becoming nothing more than a series of images and feelings, as though I was an animal in a trap; a woodland creature caught, alive, in its own environment. What a horribly bitter thing that must be for a cuddly little herbivore, to be caged and facing its doom, but still be able to look around and see the happy forest it had known its whole life. In this case, _I_ was the harmless, victimized bunny rabbit, and the role of the predator had yet to be determined. He hadn't made a sound since the initial vocalization. Several droplets of water raced each other from my drenched hair down by back, feeling like the touch of death. One tiny water-bead rolled from its perch on my left eyelash and splashed into my eye. My mind raced as I continued to struggle with the damn blouse. Options? I could just run right now. But I'd kicked off my sneakers at the door, so I was barefoot with no shirt. I could attack him, banking on the element of surprise. But I guess that's not really possible when you're essentially standing on stage, as I was. Talk to him, ask him what the bloody hell he was doing in my house? Maybe….

"Sarah," came the voice behind me. It sounded like he was moving closer, although I heard no footsteps. I kept fighting with the blouse, my eyes away from him. I didn't want to look.

"Sarah," he said again, now from right behind me. I still pretended he wasn't there. So far all I knew about this intruder was that he knew my name. That and that his voice sounded vaguely familiar.

A black leather glove moved into my line of vision and I actually opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Scared out of all rational thought, I noted distantly that his hand wasn't coming toward me, but rather, toward my robe where it hung on its hook. The hand grasped it firmly, then it left my sight for a moment and I felt the robe drop around my shoulders. Knowing full well I was not camouflaging my shaking at all, I finally turned around.

The sight of the man in front of me wrenched a few second's worth of hysterical laughter from my throat, during which he calmly waited for me to finish. I guess I should explain. I was looking at Jareth, the Goblin King. He was the literal face of all of my teenage fantasies, dreams and nightmares. I'd gotten so obsessed with my fantasy world (of which he was king) that when I was fifteen I had an uber-realistic _episode_ where I thought I'd actually gone there. This wasn't the standard realistic dream. I was pretty sure I hadn't been asleep, and it was so real I could remember the _smell_ of the place. They say that smell is the sense most tied to memory. Of course, any self-respecting bizarro-fairytale-land consists of a variety of settings, and mine had been no exception. There was even one setting whose most identifying feature was a noxious odor…. But there was one underlying fragrance throughout the whole place, always close around me and always annoyingly unidentifiable. You know how you might see a minor character actor in a movie, and it drives you crazy trying to figure out where you've seen them before? This smell was like that, and I have never been able to forget it, even though I've never experienced anything remotely similar since then. How to describe…. Does glitter have a smell? I'm not talking about the stuff kids use in arts-and-crafts; metal shavings stuck on paper with glue. I'm talking about, like, a substance that _is_ glitter. It's not made of metal, or plastic, or anything fake. It's like light, or water, or warmth. Does thermal energy have a smell, independent from the object it's heating?

The morning after it happened I'd been so freaked out by it that I swore I'd never think about it again; that is, if I wasn't looking for some lock-down time in a pysch ward. It was kind of good, in a way. Most people can't pinpoint the exact moment they grew up, but I can. It was that morning, when I packed up most of my fantasy-oriented belongings and hauled them to the attic. In fact, as I did this I distinctly remember thanking Jareth, as well as Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus and a host of others for helping me to see what a dangerously fantasy-addicted kid I was. No _way_ had any portion of that episode been real. I really hadn't thought about it since. Why in the hell was the King of the Goblins standing in my bedroom?

He looked just as I remembered him. He was dressed in all black, imposing as hell in his flowing cape, armored breastplate, black riding breeches and tall boots. Snapping my eyes back to his face, I noted that his hair was wild as ever and his face still had that otherworldly, completely-inhuman quality that had both excited and unnerved me as a child. Utterly devoid of expression, he bent his face a little closer to my own. As a direct reflex, I leaned back to get out of his way, my back bumping into the doorframe. If I hadn't been a hundred-percent caged before, I was now.

"Sarah, are you alright?" he asked. There was maybe the tiniest twinge of concern in his eyes. Checking…yes. They were still oddly mismatched. Wait, was he actually talking to me?

"Sarah," he repeated.

God, I'd forgotten the way he'd said my name. He _drawled_ it, in a way that could make me feel positively violated. In the intervening years, I may have banished all thought of him from my waking mind, but that didn't mean I didn't sometimes dream about him. That's how it always started, with him saying my name. _That way._ Like it was the most deeply sensual word in the English language.

I clutched my robe around me, still staring at him. Um, was I still not talking? Why couldn't I get my brain in gear? Oh yeah, because I was gazing into the eyes of a figment of my imagination. That must be it. I could hear blood rushing in my ears, evidently on its merry way away from my brain because I was incredibly light-headed. It was like I was made of Jell-O and suddenly a fancy closet system didn't sound like such a bad idea – they generally come with a little stool or chair to use when you're putting your shoes on. What I wouldn't have given for a piece of furniture at that moment! Of course if I fainted outright, at least I would be properly playing the role of the heroine to his villain. And maybe that was what I was supposed to do….

He spoke again. "Sarah, I think I'll give you a chance to change your clothes and …relax for a moment. I seem to have startled you. May I speak with you in your kitchen in say, ten minutes?"

Argh! How could he dare to be so calm and controlling right now? So…should I go along with it, or maybe revert to the impertinent little brat I probably was when I last saw him and refuse? Perhaps I should just insist that none of this could be real, shut the closet door in his face and sit myself down on the floor, patiently waiting to wake up. Of course, most of these choices required speech, which didn't seem like much of an option for me at the moment. Somehow I found the ability to nod. I hated myself for playing along without a fight.

"Wonderful. I'll see you then." He disappeared in a little cascade of glitter (probably not made of metal shavings).

Great! I'd just vacuumed. The robe fell to the floor as I grabbed a sweater and jeans and stiffly put them on. I consciously tried to speed up my breathing. See, I'd figured the whole thing out. I must be sleeping. If I could increase my pulse a little, and get to over, say, twenty breaths a minute, I'd wake up. That was all I wanted at the moment.

Once I was completely free of any wet clothes, I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. Okay, I thought out to the universe, I'm ready to wake up now. I'll believe this was all a dream and I'll shake my head and go make a pot of coffee to keep me awake until Neil gets home. It seemed like as good a plan as any. A few more breaths. The bed dipped next to me and I knew the dog had jumped up on it. Somehow that didn't seem like such a big deal now. I rolled over to face him and rested my head against his ribcage, comforted by the gentle rise and fall. He snuffled a little at my hair. Interestingly, Ambrosius wasn't wet anymore. In fact, he smelled remarkably clean, like he'd just had a bath, even though I knew he was way overdue for one. Cuddling into his fur as though he was an oversized, breathing teddy bear, I was reminded of Ludo (another product of my teenage psychosis). So comforted was I in that moment that I'm not exactly sure how much time passed. When I opened my eyes and glanced at the alarm clock on the table next to me, it read 12:45 a.m. Okay, so it was now officially Saturday and I'd just woken up in my own bed. I swung my feet to the floor and went to the vanity.

"Come here, Ambrosius," I called and he reluctantly left the comfort of the bed and came right over to me. "Well," I said to the dog as I tied my damp hair back in a knot, "You should know that your mommy is one crazy lady." I sighed and stretched, pausing at the bedroom door. It's just a dream, Sarah. You're appallingly overworked this week and there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't walk right into the kitchen for that coffee. Ambrosius looked up at me expectantly, seeming to sense my hesitation. I gave him one last pat on the head as I reached for the door handle. "Even _you_ wouldn't believe me if I told you, puppy," I said. "Let's go get you a treat and watch some TV until daddy gets home, okay?"

I guess deep down I was expecting what happened next. I was just in major denial because I didn't _want_ to be insane. We walked into the kitchen, and there he was. The Goblin King was just sitting there casually at my kitchen table, rolling a crystal back and forth across the surface. I noticed that he was now wearing a white ruffled shirt with gray breeches and dark gray boots. So evidently he was still a frequent clothes-changer.

The dog ambled over to him like he was approaching an old family friend and nudged his head under Jareth's hand. Jareth fluidly slid from his chair, giving the dog a good belly scratching as he rolled over onto his back. I knew I was staring like an idiot, but I couldn't help it. Without looking up, Jareth spoke.

"Sarah, I get the feeling you're not happy to see me. Honestly I'd hoped for a slightly better reception from you."

I finally found my voice. "Well, what exactly does one say to a figment of her overactive childhood imagination, waiting to ambush her in the dark twenty years after she'd stopped thinking about him?"

"Hmm…you're right. It is a tricky situation in terms of etiquette protocol. You could try being hospitable and offer me a cup of tea, but that's just a suggestion." At this, he looked up at me, a ghost of a smile forming on his lips.

Was he making fun of me? I turned quickly away and started rummaging through the cabinets. "Is chamomile okay? It's all I've got, unless you want coffee."

"The chamomile will be fine," he replied as he drifted across the kitchen and started inspecting the microwave. "You know," he said conversationally, "I think that this is my favorite invention of the twentieth century."

"Well it isn't mine," I told him as I filled the teakettle and set it on a burner. "It heats too unevenly so you never know what you're going to get. I prefer the stove any day."

So I was having a conversation with a fictional character, was that really so bad? God, I was working my way into a monster headache! I started pawing through another cabinet before spying what I needed on the spice rack.

"So what's yours?"

I risked a quick glance at him. He was sitting at the table again. Funny, because I hadn't seen or heard him move back over there. "What's my what?"

"Your favorite twentieth century invention."

"Oh, that's easy," I replied as I downed some pills with a swig of Coke and studied the red and white bottle in my hand. "Tylenol."

* * *

At the last minute, I decided to brew a pot of coffee for myself. I was still hoping (although I knew by now it was probably fruitless) that I was dreaming, and drinking chamomile with Jareth seemed just a little too 'tea with the Mad Hatter' to me. Except he wasn't wearing a hat. But it _was_ technically my un-birthday. Boy oh boy was I losing it!

I was careful to avoid eye contact with him as I took my time getting our beverages into mugs. Prolonging the inevitable, I guess. Finally I put them on the table and sat across from him.

Another loud throat clearing from Jareth. At least this one didn't make me feel like I wanted to throw up. I glanced up at him, then quickly down again.

"Now, Sarah. I'll admit on first inspection I didn't detect much of a change in you from the last time we met," he said conversationally. I could hear his spoon clinking against the side of his cup. "But perhaps I have underestimated you. Could it be that you have finally mastered the art of self-restraint?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"Only that the Sarah I knew would never have waited so long to ask the obvious questions. I know they must be positively burning at you. Yet here you sit, as though late every evening you received a visit from…a caller like me."

Fighting with myself not to give in to temptation and tell him exactly where he could take that condescending tone of his, I met his gaze. His eyes sparkled with amusement. Interestingly enough, the thought to ask questions had not yet crossed my mind. My brain was currently occupied with the question of my own sanity. "Well, I figured you'd tell me whether I asked or not." Good. Keep things nicely vague.

His eyes narrowed. "No, you really haven't changed a much at all, my dear, except to grow into quite an exceptional young woman. My, my but you do seem to have it all…husband, career, good friends…."

That was enough. "Okay, stop baiting me. I give in. What the hell are you doing here, anyway?" I tried to summon my most intimidating expression and let him have it.

"I was just in the neighborhood." Jareth started. I continued to fix him with my best approximation of an evil eye. He sighed. "Sarah, can't an old friend just drop by to say hello once in a while?"

"I suppose if we had ever _been_ friends, and you know, if you were actually a real person, that might be okay…. But seeing as I invented you as part of a youthful fantasy and I've subsequently worked hard to grow up and stop playing with imaginary friends, you'll forgive me if I'm just a bit confused by your sudden appearance. I don't remember taking any mind-altering drugs recently, so I'm at a loss here. Help me out." There. I'd said my peace. He should be going poof (or I should be returning to consciousness) any minute now.

But all that happened was that he sighed deeply and rolled his eyes. "Sarah, I can assure you I am as real as you are."

"Yeah right. And when I was fifteen I actually became, for _real_, the heroine of a Robin Zakar play and traveled to the Underground where I had to challenge _you_, the embodiment of the villain, to retrieve my baby brother. Christ, it isn't even a _good_ Zakar play! Yeah, that sounds entirely plausible, Jareth."

Then he started laughing. For real. I'd never heard him do that before and it was very unsettling. "Sarah, you think you _imagined_ all of that? Isn't that quite a lot of ego, even for you? Robin Zakar is an accomplished playwright, not to mention a friend of mine, and he would be quite insulted to hear you say that. _He_ didn't even get all of the details exactly right, did he? To be fair though, he'd never actually been there. Had to rely entirely on my directives."

"Okay…so according to you, I had some sort of authentic experience the last time I saw you? You know, I'd actually be almost happy if that were true because it'd mean I'm not crazy, but even making the biggest stretch imaginable I can't make myself believe that."

"What can I do to convince you?" He sat up a little straighter, as though he was getting ready for a challenge.

"What, that you're real? I don't think you can. I mean, if you pop out a few magic tricks I could still just be dreaming, right?"

"What if I tell you something that only you would know? I could read your mind, or describe in detail something that happened to you recently."

"Nope. If I'm dreaming that means you're part of my subconscious and therefore you know everything I do, maybe even a few things I don't know in my conscious mind, blah blah blah. I took a couple of psychology classes as an undergrad."

"Well, that puts me at something of a disadvantage, doesn't it? I know…what if I make a prediction and it happens exactly as I describe it? Would _that_ convince you?"

"I don't know. It depends on what it is, I guess. I'm not promising anything. Why? Do you have a prediction about me ready to go?"

"Yes. In exactly two minutes your phone will ring. It will be your friend Carla, wanting you to meet her at a bar."

"Two minutes from now?"

"Yes. Well, about a hundred seconds now, anyway."

"Okay, I can wait." The truth was I was already becoming more and more convinced that this wasn't a dream. It just didn't _feel_ like I was dreaming. Plus, I'd burned myself a couple of times making the tea. That had to be pretty damn near the pinching-awake thing. I kept my eyes focused in Jareth's direction, but the annoying thing was that he kept trying to make eye contact with me. Somehow I couldn't let myself do that. Ambrosius lay his head on my knee. The clock kept ticking. The phone ringing shattered the silence. Feeling defeated, I got up and answered it.

So what he'd predicted turned out to be true. Carla and a few of our other friends had found a new after-hours club they liked recently and were planning to go there after the regular bars closed, and didn't I want to join them? I lectured my friend for calling me at one o'clock in the morning on my landline (digital age etiquette dictates that if you're calling someone in the middle of the night you should call their cell because it's easiest to turn off if you don't want to be disturbed). Then I hung up and went back to the table, eyes back on my coffee cup.

"Have I convinced you, Sarah?"

I shrugged. "So you're telling me that everything that happened during those thirteen hours – well, I guess it's a little less than thirteen, right? – actually happened. I met Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus and together we beat the labyrinth and I faced off with you and won Toby back. Is that what you're saying? Wow, you must be pissed at me now, losing like that to a little girl." Okay, I _know_ it was a harsh thing to say, but my whole worldview was being shaken at the moment and I was feeling, well, cranky.

I have to credit Jareth for not getting sucked in to my snarkiness. "Actually, Sarah, I bear no grudge because I did not 'lose' to you, as you say. As it happens, the labyrinth is not a real place. You could say it's as real as you made it. The Underground doesn't exist, except in your own mind. In point of fact, despite the bit of fun I had at your expense before, it _was_ your exceptionally wild imagination that conjured all of the elements of that adventure," he appeared slightly apologetic here, "including your companions. Only I am actually real."

"And Robin Zakar?"

"I may have been something of a muse to him."

"So my friends really were in my head?"

"Yes."

I suddenly felt very cold, and without thinking I opened my mouth. "Somehow I even suspected it at the time. Especially with Hoggle. He was just the sort of fairy tale companion I would have hoped for – very 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', but a tough nut to crack, you know?" I couldn't help looking up for Jareth's reaction.

"Yes," he chuckled, "Hoggle was a great invention. There were times when I almost thought he was real myself. Although I didn't appreciated the fact that you wouldn't let me properly remember his name. Really, Sarah, if there's one thing I'm certainly not, it's forgetful!"

Without thinking, I responded. "You know that had more to do with you just being a jerk than you simply forgetting a name, right?"

"Of course I do. As long as _you_ know that that was part of the persona assigned to me in the story. Er…I'm really not a jerk, not really." The look on his face was so serious, I could've laughed. Almost.

"No, you know I have no idea why, but I don't think you're a jerk either." This time I met his gaze. Jerk? Probably not. 'Trustworthy' was still in a completely different universe, though.

"Lovely, well, now that that's settled –"

"Wait," I interrupted, "so now _you're_ real, but the Underground isn't. So who – what – does that make you, exactly?"

"That's a bit complicated, my dear. I am a different thing to every person, but to put it simply, I am tasked with giving people what they want most. For example, I could be a helpful stranger giving directions to a lost soul at the most opportune time, or the numerical inspiration for a winning lottery ticket, or the quick turn of a stoplight when someone is running late for an important meeting. I've been Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, although those are mostly for the kids, you know. But for women, now that's the most fun. I could be a swashbuckling rogue one day, a charmingly nerdy professor the next and a tortured genius the day after that. Variations on some sort of father figure tend to come up rather often. What is it with you females and issues with your fathers?"

He leaned back in his chair, and interlaced his fingers behind his head, the picture of relaxation. "But you, Sarah. You made me into a Goblin King, complete with flamboyant good looks and wardrobe. No one's ever done _that_ for me before. I've really got to hand it to you and your creativity. It's fortunate my psyche is not in possession of anything as mundanely mortal as masculinity, or it would certainly be quite threatened, what with all of these glamorous adornments." He was absolutely smirking at me.

"That's funny," I said, thinking about how his clothing generally displayed (rather dramatically) certain parts of his anatomy, "you always seemed pretty _masculine_ to me."

"I guess I would consider myself male, but I'm not really confined to anything, not being human, you see."

"So okay, what are you? You still haven't answered that."

"I am an idea. Let's just leave it at that for now. I am usually expressed in human form, as you see me, but sometimes I've been reduced to something far more vague. I am quite real, I can assure you that _you_ did not create me, and I mean you no harm. I really just came to talk. I wasn't kidding before when I said that your imagination was uniquely captivating to me, even with all of the mortals I've met. Also, I have to say, I'm impressed with how relatively calm you've been since I arrived. I realize that I startled you before, but you seem remarkably accepting of this situation, more so than most of your kind would be at having a confessed non-human in their homes."

"What? Were you hoping I'd scream like a little girl, or attack you with a blunt object?" Um, thoughts I'd had while standing at the closet door were still only _thoughts_ after all. "Sorry to disappoint you, Jareth, but I stopped being afraid of you when I was fifteen. Plus, if you had any sinister intentions towards me, I'm guessing there's not much I'd be able to do about it. I don't know any exorcists who make house calls." I stood and stretched, taking my cup to the sink. Somewhere along the way I'd lost my taste for the beverage that usually served as my most reliable panacea. As I ran cold water in the mug, a weird thought occurred to me. Of course, 'weird' was an entirely relative concept to me just then. I stopped what I was doing and turned back to Jareth, who looked completely at home sitting at my kitchen table, my dog at his feet. "I should probably stop calling you Jareth, huh? What's your real name?"

He paused before answering, tilting his head to the side. "No, 'Jareth' will do just fine. I've grown to really prefer it, in fact."

If vagueness ever became a competitive event, no one would ever be able to touch Jareth. "Okay…so what happens now?"

He turned his head slightly, as if listening for something. Then I heard it. A key in the front door lock. Somehow, however ironically, if I'd imagined the scenario of my husband coming home in the middle of the night to find me in the company of another man, it would never, _ever_ play out like this in my head. I was mildly surprised that I hadn't been worrying about this. I guess I just had enough other stuff on my mind. Grasping for some semblance of normalcy, I turned back to the sink and my mug. All I could do at the moment was focus on the task at hand, eyes down. Coffee cup, coffee cup, coffee cup.

Neil strolled into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. "Hey Sar, who's your friend?" he started, but then he froze.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think I'd been hoping Neil's arrival would be the smelling salts I needed, so to speak, to jar me out of what I now new for certain was not a dream. So, what was worse? Being crazy, or knowing that your delusion is definitely real? With Herculean effort, I turned so that I no longer had my back to the scene unfolding in my kitchen. Shutting the refrigerator door slowly, Neil's eyes darted from me to Jareth and back again. I'd thought I had a pretty bizarre evening up until that moment, but it was nothing, _nothing_, compared to what Neil said next.

"Jareth, what are you doing here?"

Jareth smiled graciously. "Hello, Neil. Just thought I'd pay a visit to some old friends."

I couldn't breathe. I mean, not at all. When I steeled myself moments earlier for whatever this conversation might bring, I had planned to appear as casual as possible, leaning against the sink. Now I needed to do so for support. The room faded a little at the edges of my vision. There was a hand-turkey on the fridge, courtesy of Abby, Rachel and Dave's five-year-old daughter. I focused on it now. A voice, somehow, came out of me. I didn't really recognize it as my own. "Do you two _know_ each other?" I didn't look at either of them.

"But of course," Jareth answered. "Sarah, I think with time you'll find that there is very little in your life that I have not had a hand in."

Gravity had failed me. I felt like I was falling upwards. Strong hands on my arms guided me into a chair. I don't remember anything after that.


	2. Relaxing in my own home, etc

_Thanks to everyone for reviews and reading. I love the input! And thanks for sticking with me here…Chapter 3 to come very soon! As always, much appreciation for my fantastic betas. Hope everyone has a great weekend._

* * *

**CHAPTER TWO: Relaxing in my own home is evidently no longer an option. I hate to say it, but this is the _opposite_ of fair! **

I woke up to a warm, moist sensation on my cheek. That is to say, something warm and moist was moving against me, and a liquid was tricking down the side of my face. There was only one thing that I would be _okay_ with being the source of it. Very cautiously, I opened my eyes. Oh, thank goodness – just as I'd hoped – dog tongue. Ambrosius' large, dark eyes were inches from my own, and I registered the fact that a pillow supported my head. Moving my hands at my sides a little, I noted the softness of the duvet, so I was back in bed. Now I felt like I'd won the lottery. I'd had a seriously messed-up dream. That was all. There was a rustle of movement from the chair in the corner, and I felt the bed dip next to me under the weight of another person. Hands reached out in the semi-dark to smooth the hair back from my forehead. I closed my eyes, wondering if it was too late to pretend I was still asleep. With relief, I noted that the hands on my face were bare, in other words, not encased in leather gloves. I sighed and leaned into the touch.

"Poor Sarah," came Neil's voice next to me. "You really scared me, sweetie. I've never seen you faint before!"

I rolled over to face him, feeling so relieved that I was here, in my own bed with my husband. It was all I could think of. "Oh Neil, I just had the worst dream. You'd never believe it. For a minute there I was afraid I'd finally lost my grip." I was suddenly starving. I twisted away from him to check the time. 2:45 a.m. "Hey, have you eaten yet? I'm starved – let's make a frozen pizza or something and just watch some mindless TV, okay?" With his weird schedule, this time of night was generally when Neil was doing just that, eating dinner and watching TV. "You weren't going to sleep anytime soon, right? Will you just hang out with me for a while?"

"Uh, Sarah…that's cool, but – "

I didn't hear whatever else he said. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I'm self-absorbed or that I'm in the habit of ignoring people, but my mind was running truly one-track. I was full of…happiness to be alive. That was the only way to put it. You know how sometimes you just have a dream that's so awful – maybe you know you're dreaming at the time, maybe you don't – that when you wake up the first and only thing you can think about it is to just, you know, thank all of the gods and angels that it wasn't real? Yeah, that's what I was experiencing at the moment. I was so ridiculously happy to just be _here_, in my apartment with Neil and Ambrosius, all of us safely home after a long week, getting ready to watch something stupid to laugh at on TV. There was no place in the universe I'd rather have been. I went into the bathroom, changed into my pajamas and washed my face, which only seemed to increase my euphoria. My face in the mirror looked like it always does, the water was pleasantly cool…I wondered for a minute if I should actually take a shower. The idea of all of that real, physical sensation sounded pretty nice. But no, I was too hungry. Food first, then a shower, then a nice twelve-hour nap. I'd be good as new. I even hummed to myself as I walked back into the kitchen.

Beautiful. Everything was as it should be. Neil was fiddling with the oven; no sign of any uninvited guest. He looked up at me and smiled.

"Okay, Sar. Pizza in fifteen."

I was so happy with the overwhelming ordinariness of this situation, I felt like this might be the perfect moment to burst into song, if I did that kind of thing, which I don't. I gave Neil a quick kiss and just about floated into the living room, where I sat in my usual spot on the couch and – of course – the remote was right in front of me on the table, where it belonged. That's right, universe, I thought. You can try to freak me out but in the end I always come out on top. No stupid dream can change that.

_But you, Sarah. You made me into a Goblin King…._

Stop that, I told myself. Absolutely _no_ thinking about that dream, or about Goblin Kings in tight pants, or mismatched eyes more expressive than any human's…. I took a couple of deep breaths and flipped through the channels, trying to force all stupid, childish fantasies away. The thing is, I really used to dream about Jareth a lot, once that fantasy of my fifteenth year had given him a concrete physical appearance in my mind. I think I may have dreamed about him even before that, but he was more just a bodiless voice then, telling me all sorts of grown-up things I wasn't ready to hear. The night before my now-infamous-in-my-own-mind Thirteen Hours, I distinctly remembered a dream in which I was falling asleep and his voice was whispering to me. _What _no one_ knew, my sweet Sarah…but you know it, don't you…soon…soon…._

As I got older, the dreams grew more erotic in nature. Later, in my college attempts to psychoanalyze myself, I concluded that I'd just taken all of my anxieties about getting older and dealt with them – the fears, sexual fantasies, dreams – by rolling them up into a single persona (Jareth) so I could easily explore said fears, fantasies and dreams. But wow, some of those dreams! They went _way _beyond steamy, and I'd had them pretty much up until I met Neil a few years ago. With Neil, we both seemed to know very early on that we'd end up together and it's amazing how childish fantasies of mythical kings can be displaced by grown-up fantasies of weddings and marriage overnight.

Ambrosius flopped down into my lap and I petted him gently, very grateful for the distraction. Suddenly, there was a steaming plateful of pizza on a tray in front of me. I hadn't even noticed how it had gotten there. Looking up, I saw Neil gazing at me, looking concerned.

"Sarah, I called your name three times. Didn't you hear me?"

I hadn't. "What did you want?"

"Just wondering what you wanted to drink. I figured Diet Coke…or maybe a beer…I just didn't know how soon you wanted to be sleeping."

For some reason, he was still standing up, plate in his hand. "Sit down and eat, okay? I'll get my own drink." I moved to the kitchen and decided on the Diet Coke; alcohol probably wasn't a good choice given the state of my thoughts, and coffee was a little too caffeinated for me this late at night. As I poured myself a glass, I noticed something weird. The coffeepot was on, and there was about a cup's worth of black sludge baking into the bottom of it. It was still emitting a pitiful gurgle with its burned-coffee smell. It was almost as though someone had brewed a pot earlier….

"Neil," I called, forcing my voice to be as calm and steady as possible.

"Yeah, Sar?"

I couldn't really find the words for the question I wanted to ask. Maybe that was because I didn't _want_ to ask anything. I took a sip of Diet Coke and had a bite of pizza, not registering that it was burning the inside of my mouth. Quietly, I studied the coffeepot. A feeling of falling – that seemed oddly familiar – began to creep over me. Gravity had always been my friend until now, too. As I cocked my head to the side, I continued to regard the coffeepot with detached, almost academic interest. There had to be some significance to it, I was sure. None of my other household appliances made me feel like I was in the middle of the first drop on a rollercoaster. The red light glowed, unassumingly. A hand reached out and turned it off. Neil was next to me now.

"Sarah," he started slowly, "are you ready to talk about what happened before?"

Before I could construct an answer, he closed in on me, pinning me back against the counter in a very un-Neil-like manner. Oh crap, the events of earlier in the evening were quickly becoming clear to me. Like a light bulb over my head, I remembered something that I hoped with all my heart wasn't true. Damn, there was just no way to avoid asking him. I struggled, again, to keep my voice steady. "When I woke up – before – you said I'd fainted, didn't you?"

"Yes."

Trying to seem as offhand and casual as possible, I said, "Did I, by any chance, lose consciousness while sitting at the kitchen table, in front of you and um, a guest?"

"Yes."

I was immediately crushed against his chest as Neil's arms went around me. "Oh, Sarah, I'm so, so sorry." He was stroking my hair, my face smothered near his shoulder. "I always knew that someday I'd have to talk to you about this, I just hoped it wouldn't be so soon."

Neil is not a big guy. In fact, I'm a couple of inches taller than he is, but he can be really strong when he wants to be. With some difficulty I liberated myself from his death grip, my thoughts whirling over what had just come out of his mouth. I knew that if most women heard their husbands say something like that, they'd immediately be worried about possible affairs or past gender reassignments. Even though I was reasonably certain I didn't have to worry about those particular skeletons in the closet, I was just as sure that whatever he said next wouldbe equally threatening to my peace of mind.

"Okay Neil, you are really starting to freak me out. I order you to tell me what's going on _right now_." Sometimes when he gets emotional, a little hard authority is the best way to calm him down. And I know it's a bit childish of me, but up until then, I felt like _I _was the one who had the exclusive right to being freaked. At least the upshot of his mini-breakdown was that it made me feel more in control by comparison, so I automatically fell into step with logic.

He took one of my hands in his and led me back to the living room, shaking his head. I grabbed my drink from the counter and flipped the TV off on the way back to the couch, all the while maintaining physical contact with him. He was completely white. He looked like I _felt_. We sat together on the couch and I tucked up my legs beneath me so I could face him. I smiled as reassuringly as I could under the circumstances.

"Sar, it's kind of a long story, but I guess now's the time…. Just don't interrupt until I'm finished, okay?"

I nodded quickly, never taking my eyes off him.

"It all started about ten years ago…."

Whoa. Ten years ago was before Neil and I had even met. But – very quick calculation – ten years _after_ Jareth and I had met. I wondered, a little distantly, if I was going to make it through the rest of this story without throwing up.

"So I was just starting to do some open mic nights at the little comedy clubs. I had this one set – it was really important because the club owner had told me personally that if she liked my act she'd put me on the regular paid roster – and I was nervous as hell, totally puking my guts out in the bathroom backstage."

Okay, so far so good. Even a direct reference to vomiting and I wasn't feeling like _I_ needed to. Yet. Actually, since I'd left acting to work at the university, I didn't think I'd thrown up once. But when I was acting regularly, it seemed like I could never go on stage without emptying my stomach contents in that horrible way first. My Equity card had come at a very high price (my general physical health) and it wasn't long after that that I'd decided it wasn't worth it.

"Anyway, I was just trying to get it together, you know, splashing some water on my face, when this guy came into the bathroom. He wasn't the usual type for a comedy club, plus we were backstage and I thought I knew everyone there. Anyway, he had kind of a fruity look and he was all dressed up in these wild clothes. I was afraid he might try to hit on me, or at the very least, try to sell me some drugs. So I booked for the door, but he blocked the way out. Then he _called me by name_, and he said 'You don't know it yet, Neil, but one day, you and I will become very important to each other.' So then I was sure he was gay, and I was freaking out, and he asked me, like there was nothing weird about it, if I was nervous about going on stage that night. I told him that hell, yeah, I was nervous, that this performance could totally make or break my career. So he said, 'That's why I'm here. I'm going to fix it so you can't fail tonight. The audience will love you and after tonight your career will be assured.' I was totally humoring him by this point, so I thanked him, and he moved aside and I left and went to the stage."

"So I did my act – pathetic as my material was back then – and I _killed_. I have never had an experience like that on stage, before or since. Even doing _The Tonight Show_ doesn't come close. I mean, I was on fire; I could do no wrong for this audience. I couldn't believe it when it was over. I stayed and did two more sets that night, each one a bigger hit than the last. That was the night I got my first professional contract."

"When I got home I found _him_ there waiting for me. It was a total _Dr. Faustus_ moment – I figured he was there for my soul or something! He said he just wanted to talk. He told me his name was Jareth and that he had this friend, a beautiful woman, whom I would eventually meet. He told me that when I met her we would fall in love and be married. He described her as pretty much the closest thing to perfect this side of Shangri La. So I was like, 'Hey, man, I sure wouldn't touch any girl of yours!' He just smiled and said not to worry, that it was destiny or something and that he wanted to make sure that when we met, I'd be willing to marry her. He promised that I would really love her and wouldn't meet her until I was ready to get married, and that he knew I was a good guy and he trusted me to follow through. So I promised, again, totally humoring him – I mean, I couldn't wait to get him out of my house, you know? Eventually he left."

I don't know what I was expecting when I commanded Neil to tell me this story. But it wasn't this. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was hoping that maybe Neil had found one of my old diaries and read it, then recognized 'Jareth' by description alone, however unlikely that might be. Even when Jareth had implied that they knew each other, I still didn't believe it until I got it straight from my husband. You know how when you're having a really sad, pathetic, pitying-yourself kind of day, you think the whole world is colluding in a conspiracy to take you down? Well, now I was _officially _having that kind of day. Except in my case it wasn't irrational. I guess on some level, I should have been glad that Neil and Jareth weren't old friends or something. But that was only if I was looking for a silver lining here, which I wasn't.

"Is that the only time you ever saw him?"

Neil shook his head. "No. He would come back, like, once every year or so, just to remind me of our deal. Then we had a more in-depth conversation, um, about six years ago."

I couldn't help it. A few tears squeezed their way out. My worldview had been shattered in a matter of minutes. "Neil, that wouldn't be when you and I _met_, would it?"

"Sarah, I think by now you know the answer to that."

That was it. I couldn't take it anymore. It was just, quite plainly, _not fair_. Yes, I know – what an apt thought to be having at that moment, but I was in no mood to dwell on irony. I collected our dishes as smoothly as I could and took them to the kitchen sink, scrubbing at the plates furiously. A strong pair of arms circled my waist.

"It's okay, sweetie. I love you. We'll get through this."

Before I could weigh the pros and cons of getting into a full-on fight, I got right up in his face. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me about any of this before? Did it ever occur to you that I had a right to know, that maybe I should get a say in my own life? God, Neil, this is so like you – to hide something important from me to avoid a fight! Explain yourself!"

He looked very lost and I felt (only marginally) guilty for the outburst. "Sarah, I'm sorry. That's all I can say. Once we started dating, and I fell so hard for you, I convinced myself that I'd somehow imagined the whole thing."

"Oh, don't give me that bullshit! You don't seem all that shocked by tonight's events to me! So where the hell did Jareth go, anyway? I'm sure we'll have the pleasure of seeing him again soon, right?"

"Actually, yes. He'll be back in the morning. He wanted to give you time to get over the shock of seeing him again."

"Pfft – he thinks I'll get over it in a few _hours_?" I forced a particularly stubborn piece of pizza into the garbage disposal. "It's been twenty years since I last saw him and I still haven't gotten over _that_."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He pushed away and tried to turn me to face him.

Shit, what did I just say? "God damn it, Neil!" I said. That's right, I told myself, just use that old trick of turning the focus back onto how _he_ was the one in the wrong. "Do you really think that some kind of otherworldly entity is just here for a visit? I'm going to bed. Tomorrow I'm leaving – maybe I'll go see Dad and Karen for a while."

"Sarah, I don't think that's a good idea…."

"Shut up! I'm not speaking to you any more." Then I did the last thing that seemed in my power to do. I went into the bedroom, locked the door behind me and fell into bed praying for sleep.


	3. In which I stretch my, etc

_Okay, so it wasn't _quite_ Monday. : ) Much love to everyone for reading, and praise be to my betas!_

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**CHAPTER THREE: In which I stretch my interrogation skills and attempt to lay down the law.  
**  
You know how sometimes you wake up in the morning, and you just _know_ that something heinous happened the day (or night) before? There's this gut feeling, but in those first few moments of wakefulness you've got that 'blank slate' thing going on. It's nice, right? Not having to remember yet. On this particular Saturday morning, I knew that if I dug a little deeper into my consciousness I could pop a hole right though that bubble. Even so, it was crucial to me that I put it off as long as possible.

I woke up feeling beyond disoriented. I figured I must have gone out with Carla and everybody from the production staff the night before and had too much to drink. That was _not_ good that I didn't remember it, though. Very not good. My headache felt like a gift from the mother of all hangovers, and my eyes were very nearly swollen shut. I forced one of them open, and the edge of a purple pillowcase swam into focus. Good, so I least I was in my own room. The last time I'd woken up feeling this shitty was several years ago, when we'd thrown a bachelorette party for Rachel and I'd woken the next morning on what had turned out to be Rachel's living room carpet. Well, it was hardly the I-woke-up-in-a-dumpster story that some of my more adventurous college friends liked to tell, but it had been pretty wild living for me.

There was also the vague impression that I'd had some bizarre dreams, but they didn't have any form or substance. Just the kind of dreams that vaporize in daylight. I closed my eyes again. My face, especially the mouth and eye regions, were gritty and as dry-feeling as if I'd slept in a desert. And the taste on my tongue, well, it's better if I don't go into that. I wouldn't know if I was going to be sick to my stomach until I tried to move, and I decided I might as well postpone that particular experience. But in some ways it was like the desire to pick at a scab, so I (very cautiously) stretched my arms and legs, just a little bit.

Mmm…the pillow currently squashed against my face smelled like Neil, a combination of his aftershave (which I'd bought him for Christmas) and my shampoo (which he used freely whenever he ran out of his own, never mind the fact that it was expensive and he had practically no hair). It was an unforgettable combination, kind of like an outdoor campfire that had been banked with a bucket of wet cherries. Okay, I know it sounds a little weird, especially for a scent I apparently _liked_, but this mixture of boy- and girl- smells reminded me of him and definitely smelled _right_ in the bed next to me. Okay…but something really wasn't right. Why was it _my_ head, and not Neil's, being caressed with the odor of burned-cherry stink? I opened my eyes just the tiniest bit and confirmed what I thought I'd noticed when I'd stretched before. I was lying diagonally across the bed, my head on Neil's side, and I was alone.

Panic started to seep into me then, smothering the sick feelings I'd had when I woke. With some difficulty I struggled into a sitting position. Neil had a late-at-night kind of job and it had never bothered me to go to bed alone, unless you think 'bothered' would be indicated by my compulsive window-locking habit, which I was sure it didn't since sixty percent of home invasions in our zip code involved entering through a window. Anyway, he was always back by morning. In other words, if it was daylight (and before noon if he'd been working the night before) there was only one place my husband would ever be, and that was in this bed. I proceeded to panic ever-so-slightly more as I consciously noticed that I hadn't been under the covers at all and the door was closed tightly. I never slept with it closed (pointless to try with a dog in the house who is constantly at odds with himself over whether to sleep with his people or attempt to guard the front door). What the hell happened last night?

Feeling the oncoming dread teasing against my insides, I made my way up and through the bedroom door, and proceeded cautiously – and silently – down the hall towards the living room. When I saw the pair of bodies on the couch, my pulse quickened and last night came flooding back. The lock, the rain, the Goblin King. Oh crap. My fight with Neil. The fact that Jareth had set me up with my husband, apparently. Oh yes, there it was now – that increasingly-familiar feeling of betrayal and revulsion and disbelief was knifing it's way though my chest yet again. Neil and Jareth. Jareth and Neil. God only knew the extent of their relationship. But holy Christ. They _had_ a relationship. My life was some kind of cosmic joke. The evidence of my subsequent tirade, upon learning this news last night, was right in front of me now. Neil and Ambrosius were huddled together on the couch, evidently in fear of incurring my wrath once again. They were deeply asleep and it was difficult to judge which of them was snoring louder.

Letting out a long breath, I stepped into the kitchen to decide what to do. Shit! Of course I had been in the bedroom because of the fight, and Neil had slept on the couch. Now, what to do about that fight…I allowed, just in my mind, that maybe I'd been a bit irrational in not letting Neil say everything he needed to say. I was quite sure there was more to the story of Neil's past meetings with Jareth than I'd heard last night, but I hadn't waited around to hear it. But seriously, my husband and Jareth, for goodness' sake! Knowing that they knew each other, that they'd _discussed_ me…well, it was more than just betrayal. It was a cold, vulnerable feeling that invaded every part of my being and I didn't know how I'd ever feel okay again.

Even though it didn't come close to the anguish I was feeling over this, I couldn't help but be reminded of something that had happened to me in high school. My sophomore through senior year, I had this amazing English teacher. Most drama (or music, or art) kids have a teacher like that at some point, who totally inspires them, makes them feel that they understand their artistic soul far better than their parents ever could, etc. Although the phenomenon I'm talking about is probably also to blame for the occasional teacher who has the baby of one of her twelve-year-old students, obviously cases like that are few and far between. This type of teacher/student bond is wonderful and magical; Plato had Socrates, Mozart had Haydn; I had Mrs. Prescott (not that I'm comparing myself to the Platos and Mozarts of the world, per se, but you get the idea). Mrs. P and I were friends from the moment we met, and she encouraged my interest in theatre, even as – under my mother's influence – I gravitated toward the melodramatic nineteenth century plays, instead of the Shakespearean classics I'm sure she would have rather seen me interested in. It's not that there was anything wrong with the plays I liked – Zakar's "Labyrinth" of course at the top of that list – but in terms of their literary value, they weren't, you know, Shakespeare. But Mrs. Prescott and I had a real bond. She listened to me when I had no one else to turn to, spending time with me after school, running lines or going over poetry I'd written, to distract me from the general crappiness of my home life. Her mom had remarried when she was a teenager, so she knew firsthand what I was going through. She knew that if I really dedicated myself to something, if I had something positive to focus on, that it would make that time easier for me. That was the genesis of my learning of "Labyrinth." She helped me to memorize the whole thing and once a week I'd perform monologues for her to critique. If I hadn't had Mrs. P during high school, I don't know what I would have done.

Finally, at graduation, the unthinkable happened. It was after the ceremony, and kids were milling around on the lawn outside of the auditorium. The day had started out pretty well. Karen and I were getting along better, mostly due to the fact that I was finally growing out of some of my immaturity, and I remember just feeling really _good_, standing there with her and my dad, Toby running around us like a maniac as usual. Mrs. P fought her way over to us through the crowd, and I was really so happy to see her; I'd finally get to introduce her to my family and I was just getting ready to ask my dad if she could come out to dinner with us when she _hugged Karen_. I was confused at first but then Karen started calling her 'Lorraine' and the two of them started gushing together about how proud they were of 'their little girl' (namely, me) and then my dad was in on it, too, giving Mrs. P a hug and a kiss. Somehow, I managed to ask if they already knew each other, and guess what? They sure fucking did! Karen and 'Lorraine' (whose last name had been 'Harrison' then) had been best friends/roommates/sorority sisters in college. Oh, and for the past three years they had been discussing me at length, as soon as Karen found out that Mrs. P was my teacher. In fact, one of Mrs. P's secret missions had been to get me to trust Karen more. Turns out that on my graduation day, they were both so damn proud of me for growing up enough to do that they just couldn't shut up about it. Well, I showed them. I threw a world-class temper tantrum, worthy of the feistiest five-year-old, right there in front of the school. Then I turned around and ran to the park, which had an entrance on the next block, ignoring their attempts to call me back. That's what they got for thinking I'd matured.

An hour or so later, Mrs. P found me where I was sitting in my spot by the little stone bridge, wiping my tears with the huge sleeve of my graduation gown. She tried to tell me that she and Karen hadn't truly realized that I didn't know the nature of their relationship, and that they both loved me and were so proud of how well I'd done in school and had gotten into a good college and all of that. But it was all crap. The words coming out of her mouth were so clearly put there by Karen – the excuses for their little cover-up; they were just so lame. I told her so. Then, for the first time since I'd known her, Mrs. P got cold with me. She told me that I really needed to grow up – God, it was like she was directly channeling Karen now! – and then she said something so hurtful that I've never forgotten it. She said, "Sarah, I can't believe you're mad at me after I spent all that time working with you on that play about that stupid labyrinth." At this point I should mention that I never, you know, told Mrs. P about anything relating to my _actual_ labyrinth experience. Thank goodness for that, huh? Or that would have been thrown in my face, too.

After she said that, I knew my friendship with her was completely over. I didn't speak to her again for years, not until one night when she and her husband attended the opening of a play I directed at the university and she purposely found me afterwards. She really tried to talk to me then, but I was dismissive and blew her off. I know it's a little silly now, that this many years later I should still be so upset about something that happened back then, but I can't help it. I don't care if she and my step mom had the best of intentions, in my mind they will always be secretly laughing at me and talking about my darkest secrets. Fortunately it didn't irreparably damage my relationship with Karen. I couldn't let it; Karen will always be a part of my life; she'll always be my family and I've accepted that.

The feelings consuming me now had just too much déjà vu. Karen Williams and Lorraine Prescott. Neil Porter and Jareth 'Goblin King'. I knew they weren't exactly the same scenario, but they were pretty damn close! Hell, with the way Jareth had apparently been screwing around with my life, maybe I should give old Lorraine a call. _They_ were probably old friends, too!

"Sarah…." A moan came from the living room.

Neil was waking up. I was going to have to deal with this, somehow. Ambrosius lumbered groggily into the kitchen; obviously Neil had shifted and woken him. I threw some dry food in the dog dish and went into the living room.

He wasn't totally awake yet; Neil's eyes were still closed and he had a frown on his face as he turned, trying to find a more comfortable position. I made a decision. Clearly, the only person I could trust in the world (at the moment) was myself. But I needed information. I would make amends with Neil for last night, and then we would talk everything out as much as possible so that when and if Jareth reappeared, I'd be as armed and prepared as I could be. Kneeling next to him, I gave Neil a quick kiss on the forehead and shook him awake. "Good morning, sweetie," I whispered. His eyes opened and locked with mine, but he didn't say anything.

I took a deep breath. "Listen, I'm really sorry about the way I acted. I shouldn't have been so hard on you. Last night was obviously stressful for both of us and I just went off and made it worse. I want to talk about this, now, if you're willing." I waited as he seemed to take an eternity to respond.

The expression that shattered the calm on Neil's face was heart-wrenching, even for me, a woman with more than enough right to be mad at him. "Sarah, I love you so much. Please, love, don't be mad at me for this. I mean, I know you've got plenty of reasons to be pissed, but once I explain everything…." He trailed off and his eyes shone with tears as he struggled not to let them fall.

That was it for me. So much for my plan to not let emotions take control as I calmly interrogated him. I leaned forward, dropping my head onto his chest and clasping my hands around the back of his neck. I could feel his heartbeat, steady and reassuring, against my face as I pressed my upper body against him. A few of his tears fell into my hair as he slid over on the couch as much as he could to make room for me beside him. We lay like that for a few minutes, just breathing together, not saying anything. Relaxing there like that with him, I could almost pretend to myself that everything was fine and that the events of last night had been a dream. Almost. I closed my eyes and focused on matching my breathing to Neil's. I listened to the ticking of the kitchen clock, the gentle snuffling sounds of Ambrosius' face buried in his bowl, and the soft hum of the cable box that never seemed to stop. As I snuggled in more closely with Neil, his hand came up to stroke my hair.

"Well, well…what have we here?"

Oh, no fucking way! No _way_ was I going to let this bastard barge in on my private life like this! I was on my feet in a matter of nanoseconds.

Jareth smirked down at me, arms crossed over his chest. "I'm glad to see my surprise visit hasn't affected anything between you two lovebirds, although I'm a little shocked at your lack of hospitality. I clearly told you last night that I would be back this morning and the two of you are hardly in any position to be receiving guests." His eyes glittered with malevolent amusement.

Neil came up to stand beside me as I faced Jareth; I was literally too paralyzed with my own fury to decide what to do. "Now, really Jareth, it's seven o'clock in the morning and you never said you'd be back so early," Neil started apprehensively.

Things crystallized for me then. I lifted my hand to stop Neil from saying anything more, and addressed Jareth directly. "Is this _funny_ to you?" I asked in my coldest possible voice.

He raised an eyebrow and affected a small smile. "Why? Do I look amused? 'Entertained' might be a little more accurate, but then, you always knew I had a penchant for voyeurism, didn't you, Sarah?" He took a step toward me.

Without acknowledging _that_ little comment, I stepped forward, definitely taking Jareth by surprise, and grabbed hold of his wrist, undeterred by the softness of his flowing sleeve as it slipped though my fingers. "You will come with me now," I told him, never breaking eye contact. "I need a word with you, _Your Highness_." Shocked as I was at my own boldness, I didn't loosen my grasp and he didn't argue as I pulled him into…let's see…the bathroom. I mean, I wasn't going to bring him into one of the _bedrooms_ to try to reason with him, and the bathroom was the only other room with a proper door. I heard Neil's garbled protest over my shoulder as I led Jareth away. Commanding the situation, the manager in me took over. Leveling my gaze at my husband, I said, "It's okay, Neil. We just need to get a few things straight." I gave Neil my sincerest, authoritative look and he didn't protest. I did feel a twinge of pity for him as I noted how horrible he looked – a vicious combination of forlorn, angry and confused. Oh well. It's not like he had any reason to question me, _ever_ again, now that I knew what he had been hiding. Very deep down, a part of me hoped that sometime in the future I'd be able to forgive him, but for now I was in full wife-holding-mistake-of-the-husband-over-his-head mode.

Shutting the door deliberately behind us, I guided Jareth, not at all gently, to sit on the edge of the tub. Only once he was sitting did I release my grip and move to lean against the sink, doing my best to camouflage my shaking as I realized that I'd just aggressively been touching him. I was now looking down at him from a couple of feet, which did wonders for my confidence. I crossed my arms and stared him down, not saying anything.

In his book, _The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, _Stephen Covey suggests that in a meeting when trying to negotiate with someone, you can't be afraid of silences. If you've just made your whole point, shut up and wait for the other person to get uncomfortable; pretty soon they'll be babbling away, and you'll end up with a better deal as they give all kinds of ground to you. When I had first been promoted to Department Chair, Karen gave me the book on CD so I could listen to it in the car. Most of it is pretty ridiculous, but that particular little tip seemed applicable in this situation. It's not like I had any better ideas, and besides, I had _made_ my point. Jareth was obligated, under my roof, to oblige me if I wanted him to do something, and he could not just come and go at will whenever he pleased. My little manhandling of him should have made that loud and clear, and now I just had to wait for the opportunity to _tell_ him so, verbally. Okay, any minute now he was going to crack. I kept staring. Any minute now….

His face relaxed slightly, and the ghost of a smile he'd been sporting when he sat morphed into a lopsided grin. His eyes twinkled, and he said _nothing_. Yes, a whole _lot _of nothing was said between us, as we engaged in an impressive staring contest. Minutes, years, millennia and eons ticked by as we stared at each other. Mine was a hostile sort of glare; his was relaxed and decidedly amused. Just when it was beginning to feel like forever, I felt a subtle shift in the quality of the stare. While the mechanics hadn't changed – our eyes were still locked as they had ever been – it had somehow become less 'staring' and more 'looking into each other's eyes'. In the harsh, unforgiving light of the bathroom, I noticed all sorts of things about his face that weren't so obvious in the more dramatic mood-lighting that usually seemed to accompany him. The aesthetic of the sweep of his brows was supremely graceful, like a bird in flight, and his ivory pallor – seriously, his complexion was the kind of pale usually reserved for marble statues and vampires – actually suited him very well. The eyes themselves, well, they were their own works of art. Two seemingly-different colors, one cold, one warm, different as night and day and yet, equally deep, equally…haunted? That could have been what I saw in them, but it could just as easily have been that they were haunting _me_. His pale skin only accented the oddly beautiful markings around his eyes and the sharp, precise angles of his cheekbones. Come on, Sarah, you can do this! I screamed inwardly at myself as I felt my gaze begin to drop. You idiot! I thought frantically; I knew how crucial it was that I was losing the eye contact. He _couldn't_ win this, he just couldn't! But even as I fought so hard, I knew I was being sucked in. My will was not my own as my gaze settled on his mouth. Now, most often when people think of a typically attractive or particularly sensual mouth, they think of full, soft lips; inviting and warm. Jareth's are the complete opposite of that, thin, cruel in their own way even when he smiled, almost without color, nothing soft about them. But that grace that was present in the rest of his features and in every gesture he made, every breath he took, seemed to emanate from his mouth. His lips quirked and curved, almost acrobatic in their movements as he shifted his lazy smile back into a smirk. Dear lord, I was _lost_ looking at his mouth. Still silently screaming at myself, I begged and pleaded with my _own_ stupid mouth to stay closed. Shit – I was going to say something, or drool, or worse. Oh God! Please don't let this happen to me!

"Umm…."

So much for the big build-up. Thanks, Stephen Covey, for _nothing._ There was my eloquence, "umm." Very nice. What exactly was I supposed to follow that up with, huh? There was no point to this little fight for dominance anymore. I spun around and faced the mirror, doing my best to ignore Jareth – who was still seated on the edge of the bathtub and still infuriatingly silent – as I attempted to slow my heartbeat. Hoping he wouldn't notice, I twisted my wrists and laid them, pulse down, against the cold porcelain of the sink in an attempt to use the flowing of my own blood to spread the coolness to the rest of my body. I risked a glance at my reflection and cursed the flush on my cheeks.

Against my will, I caught Jareth's glance in the mirror. In an instant, he was next to me, uncomfortably close. The way he moves just…defies logic. It's unnaturally, inhumanly graceful and deliberate, and always seems to be either very slow or very fast; nothing in between. When he's in fast-mode, which he most often seems to be, you almost don't see him move at all. He's just suddenly transported from one spot to another, and you can _practically _see the movement, but not quite. Basically, it's not your textbook abracadabra stuff, like a cheesy movie effect achieved by just stopping and starting the film; it's more like, say, watching an animal that moves through something that's an alien medium to you, like a fish though the water or a bird through the air. You can see it happening, but because you're a human and you can't fly or breathe underwater, you can't exactly empathize.

Almost casually, he directed his attention forward and stood beside me, focusing on the mirror in a contemplative manner as though he was studying the way we looked together. Reluctantly I directed my attention to our images as well. What a pair we made. I raised an eyebrow as I took in his otherworldly beauty next to my first-thing-in-the-morning appearance. I was wearing one of Neil's old concert T-shirts and a pair of yoga pants, my hair was slipping out of its ponytail (and not in any sort of trendy, messy-on-purpose kind of way; my hair looked just plain _messy_) and there were mascara smudges under my eyes as a testament to the less-than-thorough job I had done last night of washing my face. So no, glamorous I was _not_. The absurdity of this situation was overwhelming.

Clearing my throat, I decided the tension had already been broken, so I might as well get this over with. "Wow, Jareth, I'm surprised you have a reflection." I moved a couple of paces away and leaned against the wall.

"I'm not some kind of monster, Sarah," he replied as he pulled at the spikiness of his hair with his fingertips. That's right, he was fussing over his damn reflection instead of looking at me. The narcissistic jerk had just turned my life upside down and he didn't even have the decency to _look_ at me.

"I didn't say you were, it's just that I assumed you could make sure you always looked perfect without using something as ordinary as a mirror. Or is it just that you're so vain you can't pass up the opportunity to admire yourself?"

"Careful, Sarah," he said quietly. "I can bear with a great deal when it comes to you, but mind that you don't go too far…." He turned slowly to face me.

Yes! That's right Jareth, I thought, if you want to talk to me you have to do it on _my_ terms and that means that you have to come to me! Without warning, I was suddenly pinned against the wall, my hands _behind_ me (I have no idea how that happened) and Jareth had one hand on either side of my head to support himself, effectively trapping me in place without touching me. Damn, talk about a miscalculation on my part! Obviously I couldn't be right all the time, but still, this was _not _cool.

"I am every _inch_ the king you created, Sarah Williams. Don't you forget that. An artist who insults her creation may find it turn on her when its patience is tested." And just as quickly, he was gone.

I stood in the bathroom by myself, not too surprised to notice that I was shaking. What the hell had I done to deserve this? Numbly, I pulled my terrycloth robe from its hook and wrapped it around myself as I struggled not to cry. Why was it so cold in here? The tiles under my bare feet felt like ice as I slid to the floor and sat, wrapping my arms around my knees. On second thought, maybe it wasn't the room that was cold; maybe this frigidity was coming from _me_. It felt like it was radiating from my own heart. My stomach and what felt like several other internal organs seemed to have stepped out for a vacation, leaving me hollow and empty. The only part of me that seemed to still be in working order was my brain, through which my thoughts were flying at such a dizzying pace I couldn't keep up with them. I wanted to take a hot bath, but what if Jareth came back? It was unthinkable. "Neil!" I yelled.

The door opened seconds later. Fortunately I hadn't locked it. Neil took one look at me, huddled on the floor, and dropped to his knees, pulling me into his arms. "Sarah, what happened in here? Where's Jareth? If he did anything to you – " At this, Neil held me at arm's length, frantically studying my face, and I found I couldn't look him in the eye.

"I'm fine," I mumbled as I stood, brushing myself off. Grabbing my face scrub, I turned on the hot water in the sink. If I couldn't have a real bath, this would have to do. Bathing or showering were out of the question for me for the time being. I went over the possibilities in my mind, including having Neil guard the door from the inside or outside, but of course there was no way to stop Jareth if he decided to come back. A few tears of frustration squeezed their way out of my eyes while I splashed the wonderfully warm water on my skin. As I buried my face in a clean towel, I felt Neil's hand moving in a circular motion on my back. Bless him for not trying to make me talk. Sometimes he knew just what I needed.

See, I was just completely rattled. You might think that with everything that had happened since the previous evening, I'd be over that feeling of sick shock by now (or at least getting used to it), but I wasn't. Something about confronting Jareth in as mundane a place as my bathroom, and particularly having him that close to me, physically, made all of this uncontrovertibly _real_. I had tried to make a point with him (that my home was my own domain) and he had bested me. Bottom line, my pride was a little hurt. My level of immersion in fantasy and science fiction up to this point in my life had taught me a few things about dealing with all-powerful non-humans (or so I thought). I guess it's like if you're a fan of slasher flicks, you might feel a little smug seeing characters make the standard mistakes, like watching a female victim running upstairs where there'd be _no_ escape from the knife-wielding maniac in the house (or one of the many such clichés). You think that _you'd_ never be so dumb, and God forbid, if you were ever in a similar situation, you'd at least know what to do. Well, at the moment I was being humbled. Even though until last night I hadn't believed that things like Jareth existed, on some level I figured I'd know what to do if ever confronted by something, say, from an episode of _Night Gallery_ or _Tales From The Crypt_. There are just a few common sense things that every kid knows, like that werewolves are allergic to silver, that you shouldn't invite a vampire into your home, and that if say, you're ever in an Egyptian tomb and you stumble upon the Scroll of Thoth, _maybe_ you shouldn't read it out loud. Okay, so Jareth was hardly a classic movie monster, but he certainly wasn't human, and humans at least I _knew_ how to deal with. The idea of someone being able to appear at will, uninvited, or spy on me at any moment, or – eek! – read my thoughts…. Come on! People in my situation usually had some course of defensive action, like a talisman, or a phrase, or a well-directed dose of Judeo-Christian religion. It had been a shot in the dark, to be sure, trying to assert some kind of dominance over him by pulling him into a private meeting, the same way I would with an unruly underclassman. So it hadn't worked, but there was bound to be something else that would…. And if I was being honest with myself, as much as Jareth was frustrating me at the moment, I didn't think he was _evil_, so I supposed that throwing some holy water on him wouldn't have much of an impact. But wait, wasn't there some weakness I was overlooking? I felt it pulling at my memory, ever so slightly….

_You have no power over me._

Aha! Of course! The laws of fantasy _do _prevail. Every super-being has their kryptonite. The _next _time I saw Jareth, he would get a taste of his.

"Earth to Sarah."

I looked up from the towel to see Neil, looking as concerned as I'd ever seen him. "Sorry sweetie, I was just thinking." I turned back to the mirror to ponytail the mess on my head.

"About what?"

"The Pythagorean Theorem. What the fuck do you think?" Okay, maybe I was a little testy. "Sorry, hon," I said hastily. "Jareth just has me a little freaked, is all. Could you make me some coffee?"

Neil gave me an appraising look. I'm sure my attitude, and the fact that I was having private arguments with the likes of Jareth wasn't helping his state of mind. His eyes narrowed and he sighed. "Sarah, where did he go? Will he be back?"

I slipped past Neil into the hallway and patted him on the shoulder. "Your guess is as good as mine," I answered grimly.

* * *

"Sarah, I'm telling you, you got most of the story last night. To break it down for you, like I said, I met him probably ten years ago, then I saw him a few more times after that – just these quick conversations, nothing too profound – where he'd remind me of our deal."

"Wait, hold up a second…_deal_? I think I need that particular word explained a little more." Neil and I were sitting and basically just…waiting. For what, I didn't know. We'd spent a couple of hours (and a half dozen pots of coffee; let's just say I never wanted to sleep _again_) after Jareth left, rehashing everything that had happened. I was in complete turmoil and while I kept reminding myself that the best course of action would be to kill my husband with kindness, so to speak, my raw anger just kept getting the best of me. Sure, I knew that being nice and understanding would probably coax the most honest answers out of him, but then I remembered what he'd done. I know it was technically only 'lying by omission' for him not to have informed me that he had met Jareth, but that was little consolation.

"What? I'm just saying he kept turning up, you know, and reminding me that I was going to meet this awesome girl and marry her. That's all, Sarah." He sighed, the sigh of a man beaten down under intense interrogation. But I was not about to let his word choice pass by so easily.

"Neil, you said 'deal'. Now, do I need to pull out the dictionary and look up that word for you in order to get my point across here? 'Deal' implies that something is exchanged for something else. Do you see where I'm going with this?" My blood on its way to boiling, I paused for dramatic effect as I waited for him to respond, but the bastard just sat there looking harassed. I decided to come to the point and hit him over the head with it. "What was my dowry, Neil? Some responsive audiences and lucky breaks for you? Hey – you got a 30-second cameo in a Lorne Michaels movie and all you had to do was marry me! Sorry, darling, but it seems like you may have gotten the short end. You had to put up with Chris Kattan for a whole day, _and _me for the rest of your sad life!" Fuming, I got up and started shuffling through some CDs that I'd noticed had escaped their alphabetical order. This was ridiculous. My husband had had to be bribed into matrimony. What was wrong with me? Was I not enough of a desirable potential mate that I could have attracted someone legitimately? And why, of all people, was Jareth so concerned with my ability to find a husband? Nothing made sense anymore.

"Jesus, Sar. You always have to make things so dramatic." He stood and joined me at the CD rack, his expression softening slightly. "Sarah, I'm sorry I used the word 'deal', okay? That wasn't what I meant. Yes, it's true I had a great set the night I first met Jareth, but if it was his doing, I'm sure it was only to get my attention, so I would listen to him." Neil gently grabbed my shoulders, halting my mad organization, and looked directly into my face. There was an expression of true sincerity in his dark eyes. At this moment I couldn't help but think of what had happened earlier with Jareth in the bathroom. Now I was studying Neil's face, and – not for the first time – I couldn't help being drawn in by his boyish good looks. His serious brown eyes were fringed with the longest eyelashes I'd ever seen on a man, his skin was a healthy tan no matter the time of year and his hair was dark and very short, but its tendency to curl ensured that it always looked as though he'd just climbed out of bed. "I love you," he said. "And I always will."

I should have left it there. It was a nice moment. But damn it, I just couldn't, because I had to voice the question pounding in my head. "Neil, how can I ever trust you again?"

Neil's hand came up to brush the side of my face. "Let me put it to you this way, sweetie. What choice have you got?"

Suddenly, I was back in a dank, dark tunnel outside of an oubliette in a world (I guess) created by Jareth just for me, consumed with questioning of the loyalty of someone else I once thought I could trust. I shook the image away.

In that moment, direct eye contact was too much for me. I pushed away from him. "Well," I said, "it's been a little while since we've seen you-know-who, and I still need to get dressed, so…I'll be back in a few." Edging out of the room, I tried not to notice the melancholy expression on Neil's face.

As it turned out, one good thing had come of the morning so far. I learned that a constant state of dread did eventually turn into numbness. There were two negative feelings fighting within me for the title of Thing That Most Ruined Sarah's Life. These were the betrayal itself (the feeling that I could never again trust my own husband) and the fact that I was no longer (if I had ever been) in control of my life. There was just no getting around the fact that Jareth was stronger than me, stronger in the practical sense (again, super-being) and in the fact that he knew everything that was going on from a far more omniscient position than myself (and knowledge equals power). So okay, there was nothing I could do about the control thing. I knew Jareth could call the shots if he wanted to, and I didn't have much hope of being able to change that. So then there was the other bad feeling to contend with: the betrayal. Of course I know that trust between married partners is key, but I totally took ours for granted (childhood lessons to the contrary orchestrated by Jareth notwithstanding). Neil had always been exactly who I needed him to be, a little goofy at times (well, he _is _a comedian) but dependable, too, and very good at listening, supporting me and giving me my space when I needed it. He wears every emotion on his sleeve; there's nothing secretive about him. He's a terrible liar and he certainly can't hide anything from me. Or so I thought. Now, in the span of a few short hours, all of my peace had been shattered. I was bitter about that, and intended to hold both of these males accountable.

Mindlessly, I stepped into the closet and stared at my clothes without really seeing them. Usually when I got dressed, I had some idea of what that day might hold. Since it was Saturday, I would normally have dressed in jeans or maybe sweats; something acceptable for walking the dog or maybe a quick trip to the grocery store. As I contemplated different items now, I thought about what would happen if Jareth came back, and what requirements I might have of my chosen outfit. In my first encounter with the guy, I'd been sucked into his make-believe world without so much as a chance to ask if I was dressed appropriately or if I should be wearing more comfortable shoes. And as it had turned out, I was about to go walking for several hours through mostly unforgiving terrain and had I known that I would certainly have worn hiking boots and maybe a jacket, not to mention the fact that I would have packed some food. Hey maybe then I wouldn't have taken an ill-fated bite of a certain edible item that turned out to be Jareth's equivalent of Snow White's witch-given apple. But no, best not to think of _that _little incident right now.

In any case, Hollywood – and certain popular novels – had taught me that un-predictable mythical beings had a habit of sending you to remote locales if you pissed them off (which honestly, since I planned on reading Jareth the riot act the next time I saw him, was a possibility). Barbara Eden's "Jeannie," for example; if she caught Major Anthony Nelson with some little astronaut wife-wannabe, well, she'd be likely to cast him to the North Pole or the Amazon jungle. Although, Jareth didn't seem to be the jealous type – after his little pop-in earlier today, I doubted he'd be upset at finding Neil and I outright having sex, for goodness' sake. No, he'd probably just watch, and then follow up with some smart-ass critique.

In any case, I settled on a pair of jeans, and given the current early-spring weather, a lightweight sweater, knowing that I had a jacket near the front door. I did end up picking a pair of boots to complete the ensemble, just in case. My pants I changed first, and having zipped up my jeans, I went fully into the closet again to dig out my boots. They featured a low heel, and I looked forward to adding a couple of extra inches of height today, even though at almost 5'8" I was already a little taller than my husband and my brother. Interesting point about me: for some reason I had a history of surrounding myself with short men; I'd only ever had one boyfriend who was taller than me and I found it so unsettling that that particular relationship was officially my most brief on record. Anyway, after getting comfortable in my boots, I stood upright, about to pull off my T-shirt.

"Good gracious, Sarah! Your exhibitionist tendencies continue to astound! If you insist on keeping up these little displays for me, I'll have no choice but to recommend you seek professional help."

I spun around to face him, fortunately having kept my shirt securely _on_, choked by my anger at having yet another brush with the paranormal. Jareth was standing there, arms crossed over his chest, his eyes sparkling with laughter as though he'd just made the best joke. "You _asshole_," I sputtered. "Get out of here! Get out!"

I thought I saw a flicker of surprise on his face from the way I'd spoken to him, but it was gone in an instant and replaced with blank neutrality as he advanced on me. Shit – I didn't know exactly how tall _he_ was, but he seemed to tower over me; so much for the boots. "Fine," he said smoothly, and a little more glitter was added to the growing pile on my bedroom carpet as he blinked away.

* * *

When I opened the door a few minutes later and advanced down the hallway, I thought I heard muffled voices coming from the living room. I moved quickly, but as silently as I could, because I had a pretty clear notion of who my husband might be talking to. I paused, hidden from view of the living room doorway as I tried to pick up their conversation. There was no mistaking it…laughter. Neil was laughing at something Jareth had said. Both were speaking in hushed tones, and damn! I couldn't really make out what was being said, other than being able to distinguish their two voices. Aside from that, they sounded almost…_friendly_. What the fuck? Again, I was flooded with thoughts of comparison between this situation and the apparent friendship between my beloved high school English teacher and much-resented stepmother. My breathing coming hard and fast, I tried to tell myself that I could be misinterpreting things, that maybe Neil was just trying to be friendly in the face of a really weird situation, but a much bigger part of my brain would have none of it. I was just getting ready to storm from my hiding place and kick two male asses, when the upper hand was deftly taken from me yet again.

A throat cleared loudly, theatrically. My experience of the night before told me it was Jareth's. "Pardon me, Neil, I must stop you for a moment. It seems that this conversation is no longer private. I believe your wife has finished dressing and has already joined us."

Fists clenched, I stepped fully into the room and approached the two men. They were _lounging_, both of them, casually. Two nearly-empty coffee mugs sat on the table. Beside them was an ashtray I hadn't seen in years holding two cigarette butts. See, Neil had once been a smoker but he'd quit shortly after we got married. The ashtray in question featured the old logo for _Late Night With David Letterman_, purchased by my husband at the NBC store on a high school trip into the city. It was a much-loved artifact of his youth and one of his favorite comedians, so it remained the only ashtray still left in our house after he'd given up the habit. My eyes narrowed as I absorbed the scene in front of me. This might sound weird, but the thing that disturbed me most about it wasn't the smoking or the apparent camaraderie between the two of them. It was the fact that – and I'm _certain_ of this – Jareth had made his little appearance in the bedroom as I was changing no more than a scant five minutes earlier. So if he'd been out here no more than a few minutes, how had there been time for the two of them to get so cozy? Unfortunately, before I could think on it too much, or formulate a question to satisfy this particular curiosity, Neil was out of his chair and standing beside me.

"Sarah – hey – this isn't what it looks like. Jareth and I were just killing some time waiting for you and – the damndest thing – I found an old pack of cigs in my coat pocket. Well, turns out he's never had one, so I offered but don't worry – I'm not going to start up again – "

Predictably, Neil was trying to placate me by addressing what he assumed to be my biggest issue. I didn't really care one way or another about the smoking. Actually, there was almost no one in his line of work who didn't smoke – long, unpredictable hours, lots of pressure and spending time in bars pretty much guaranteed that vice as a sure thing. Even though I'd certainly done my henpecking in the past (lecturing him every chance I got about the fact that every cigarette takes 12 minutes off the life of the smoker) I was still mildly surprised when I'd ultimately gotten through and he quit. But whatever. _So _not the point right now. I asked, "What were you guys talking about? Neil, did Jareth tell you that he surprised me in the bedroom while I was changing?" I paid close attention to both of them for their reactions.

"Uh, yeah, well, he said it was an accident," Neil replied. He rubbed at the back of his neck and wouldn't meet my gaze.

Okay, so that was how it was going to be. Me against them. I was getting nowhere fast with one, might as well try the other. "Jareth, I think it's time you explained what you're doing here. Immortal being or not, you are still in my home and I expect to be treated with respect. You cannot come and go as you please, and whatever it is you've come here for, I wish you'd just tell me and then get the hell out." Yay, me! I celebrated inwardly at finally having said what I'd meant to say when I pulled him into the bathroom earlier. But that was only inside – on the outside I was cool as a cucumber, glaring at Jareth with my hands on my hips. I also knew my tone was sufficiently icy, because Ambrosius had just gotten up from where he'd been sleeping on the floor and barreled into the bedroom in a hurry. So at least there was still one male in the house whom I could intimidate. Let's see if I could catch any others while I was at it.

Jareth stood also, neatly unfolding himself from his feline posture – one leg draped over the arm of the couch – and leveled his gaze at me from his full height. "Tsk tsk, Sarah dear. I don't think you'll be banishing me so easily this time."

Well, I was ready for this. I took a deep breath and looked him square in the eye, ignoring Neil's fidgeting beside me. "You know what, Jareth? You _still_ have no power over me." I stood, feet firmly planted, waiting for something to happen. But the walls didn't shake, lights didn't flicker, no one turned into any sort of nocturnal bird.

Jareth chuckled mirthlessly. "Oh, how precious! You really thought that would have some effect on me, didn't you?" He glided over to where Neil and I stood beside each other. I have no idea about my own expression, but I had the impression I'd lost my poker face. Neil looked like he wished he could drop through the floor. Jareth slung an arm casually around each of us. "Sarah, your charming husband has invited me to stay with you here, as your guest, for the next week. I'd imagine you two probably have some things to discuss, so," here he checked the clock, "I'll be back in an hour, ready to spend some time with my good friends and, if you're lucky and I'm feeling _generous_, I'll answer a few more of your questions then." And he was suddenly gone.

* * *

You might think at this point, I'd be ready to file for divorce. I mean, my husband was appearing to be conspiring against me with a supernatural entity. But something weird was happening to me, and I was only just beginning to feel its twinge. I have no explanation, but I just wasn't as upset as I should have been. Sure, I was experiencing healthy doses of shock, rage, betrayal, frustration at my loss of control, etc, but what was happening to me this weekend was just…too monumental. Incomprehensibly huge as these events were, I should have been paralyzed by fear and anger. But I wasn't. I was, for lack of a better way to describe it, going with the flow. Maybe it's like what would happen if you fell into a tiger cage. I mean, sure, you're scared shitless, but your survival instincts can also give you a lot of clarity. Having slipped into the numbness that followed the shock and anger, I was now feeling, more than anything else, clinical and calculating. Like a detective. It was like being in a dream, where you're seeing everything happening, even if it's happening to you, like a movie. That was me now. I was mildly interested in outcomes, but mostly just curious to solve some mysteries. I sort of knew it was probably a coping mechanism and I might be on my way to a total breakdown where I'd grab the nearest blunt object and warm body and have at it, but I was blessedly unconcerned. I flopped down on the couch, Neil eyeing me like I was an M 80 about to explode.

"Sarah, just let me explain," he started.

"Okay," I said. I was already on my investigatory path. See, I knew that being emotional would get me nowhere, because it would make Neil defensive or emotional himself. So, best to make him feel as secure as possible so he'd tell me what I needed to know.

He gave me a startled look. "Aren't you mad? Jareth just told you I agreed that he should stay here…."

"Let's just say I don't know yet how I feel. Why don't you start by telling me everything that happened out here before I came in?" Then I smiled. This was pretty much my behavior technique for questioning a rule-breaking student. It didn't happen too often in college, but there were the occasional cases of kids who were caught cheating, or walked-in-on in the bathroom smoking dope. There had never been a violation yet I'd felt I had to report to the campus judicial system. Each time, they'd been good kids who'd made a dumb mistake and I wasn't about to put their college careers in jeopardy over it. When Carla had sent me one of her freshman boys last week, for example, that she'd discovered cheating on her midterm, I went easy on him. He was just an unfortunate 18-year-old boy who'd had a hard time memorizing all of the names of Restoration-era ladies' clothing items (most of which were non-English words) and he'd written them on the inside sole of his shoe. But he was a good student otherwise, and showed great talent and dedication as a lighting designer, so I let it slide by making him take a few volunteer shifts in the costume shop. Actually, with the spring show about to open, an extra pair of hands was totally welcomed. God, what I wouldn't give for a run-of-the-mill problem like that right now!

Neil sat again in his chair, still keeping a wary watch on me as he began to tell me what had happened. "It was _really_ no big deal. Jareth just appeared and told me he was afraid you'd be mad at him because he'd just surprised you in the bedroom."

"Um, Jareth was _afraid I'd be mad at him_? That doesn't sound right. He _enjoys_ making me uncomfortable and doesn't give a shit about how I feel, so if he said anything like that, it was a lie."

"Well that's what he said. Anyway I offered him a drink and when I went to move my jacket off the chair the pack of Marlboros fell on the floor."

"Neil, you wear that jacket every day and you quit smoking years ago. That doesn't make any sense."

"The pack isn't mine, it's Nick's. He asked me to hold it at the club last night."

"It's your old brand. And when I first came in you told me it was an 'old pack you'd found'. So which is it?"

"They're Nick's. I was just a little flustered before, is all. Anyway, Jareth said he'd always been curious about smoking but had never done it, so I showed him how."

I tried, and failed, to imagine what that must have looked like. Some kind of warped version of a clichéd scene from an anti-smoking after-school special, featuring my husband and the Goblin King, right here in my sunny living room. I would have to take his word for it, I guess. "So what were the two of you talking about when I came in? It sounded like you were laughing."

To my amazement given the severity of the situation, Neil lost control for a second and cracked a little smile. "Well, Jareth was telling me how the two of you met."

Oh holy hell! So they _had _been laughing at the most embarrassing thing I'd done as a kid! I was not proud, in any way, of how I had met Jareth. Everything about him made me remember my shame at having wished something so horrible for my own little brother, even if I was just a kid myself. And everything about his appearance forcibly reminded me of my hormonally-charged teenage self, since I was ostensibly the creator of that appearance. No fair! Neil had had a poster of a scantily-clad Kelly LeBrock on his bedroom wall when he was in high school, but some simulacrum of her wasn't haunting him now. "Is there something funny about that?" I asked.

"No, sweetie, it's just that you have no idea what I've been going through all these years. A big part of the reason I never told you about my little run-ins with this weird guy with magical powers was that I didn't know what that meant about _you_, you know? I mean, did you secretly have some abilities I didn't know about, if the two of you were friends? At least our wedding night was – thankfully – nothing like Darrin and Samantha's, but I still couldn't be sure. Or maybe he was somehow your ex. Not to sound gay or anything, but he's pretty attractive and those pants he wears leave nothing to the imagination. I didn't know if you were comparing me to…that."

He looked like he was stifling some giggles; I rolled my eyes and looked away to formulate my next question. "What else did you talk about?"

"He explained how he, you know, does things for people, and how with his influence you created that world – the Underground – from that play, and that his 'Jareth' persona was part of that. Look, Sarah, I think it's a pretty damn cool story. You captured the attention of a super-being, and he granted your wish. That's pretty fantastic. Just thinking about it makes me feel like a kid again – imagine the possibilities!"

"Tell me how you ended up inviting him to stay here."

"I felt kinda sorry for the guy. Look, I'm not sure I should be telling you this, but he told me he was in kind of a bind and needed to get away for a while. Go someplace safe. He said he felt sorry for some things he'd done to you, or something like that. He seemed really genuine. Look, I'm honestly grateful to the guy – if he hadn't influenced me the way he did, I don't know if I would have pulled my head out of my ass long enough to realize you were the love of my life. So I have him to thank for _you_, Sarah."

Hmm…I knew I was no match for that kind of flattering talk. But I also knew there was something in there that should be setting off the warning bells. "When you say he needed 'someplace safe', do you think that's something we should be concerned about? I mean, do you think some even-more-powerful thing is looking for Jareth and is going to come in here and start blasting holes in our walls?"

"I actually asked him pretty much the same thing. He reassured me that it's not that kind of trouble and that we're not in any danger. Look, I know this might be out of line for me to say, but I think he just doesn't know how to really _talk_ to you, you know? He knows how pissed you are at him for being here, and that he's caused all of this trouble between you and me, and I really think he's uncomfortable with you because of that. Maybe – I don't know – if you try being a little nicer to him, he might tell you what he's really doing here and who knows? Maybe you'll get to be friends."

"Neil, I don't remember asking for your opinion about this. My relationship with Jareth is none of your business."

"Well, I could argue that since I'm your husband and this guy is evidently your hormonal and romantic teenage-fantasy-brought-to-life, that I _do_ have a right to butt in…." Neil paused when he saw the warning look on my face. "But I won't," he quickly amended. "I just want you to know, Sar, how sorry I am about all of this. I really, truly am. I didn't mean to keep any secrets from you, but now, well, you hopefully understand a little better why I did. You know I think – in some sense – I wanted to believe it was all some crazy dream of mine, too. I love you and wanted to believe I'd attracted you all on my own, and not because someone else was pulling the strings."

Okay, I had to give in, just a little. "I'm not mad at you anymore," I told him. "I don't completely trust you yet, but I think you can understand why. I'm sorry if I've been hard on you, I know it hasn't been easy. But you also have to know that you'd better _never_ try to tell me how to behave with Jareth. He and I may have some things to work out, but it's _my_ business, okay?"

"Okay. Sar, I think we should just be a unified front from here on out. You and I are on the same team; we're just dealing with a weird houseguest. It's only for a week. Then it's over, he promised."

"Then I really need your support more than ever, Neil. This is the week we open the musical and I'm being pulled in a million different directions right now. You promise you'll be on my side, and you won't gang up with Jareth against me?" _Or laugh at me behind my back_, I silently added.

"How could you even ask me that?"

"Just promise!"

"Okay, okay, I promise. I'll keep him nicely occupied so you can do your work, and I'll be totally on your side, a hundred percent." He got up and settled down beside me on the couch, maneuvering his arm around me.

Alright, so it was a week. And by the end of it, presumably, my life would be my own again. It was already going to be a crazy week for me, but this was just one more obstacle to overcome, like the time Dad and Karen had to have their place fumigated and had stayed with us for two weeks. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but we all made it through. I rested my head on Neil's shoulder and waited for Jareth to return. I wondered what he was doing right now. Had he been watching our reconciliation? Or maybe he'd been packing. I smiled, just to myself, as I thought about what his luggage might look like, and how many pairs of extra-tight breeches he could fit in a suitcase.


End file.
